xkcd

by **webby** » Sat Oct 22, 2011 11:01 am UTC

Ok, so Boomfrog's last post doesn't really change my estimate of the chances he's scum, because it was something he'd do either as scum or town (only possible way to survive the lynch and I guess it could also be the continuation of a 'see how people respond to votes' strategy.) I should take it as a compliment that he thinks I can read him, but it feels to me like the sort of manipulative stuff roband says as scum when he gets desperate.

Oh and on the issue of scum not wanting to defend the scummiest townie - I think it's actually exactly what scum wants to do in a game where there's only one of them - that way you'd get townie points for not being on a town lynch.

by **BoomFrog** » Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:40 pm UTC

If you defended me I probably wouldn't get lynched and although you might earn points with me you can't defend all the townies. It is a dilemma for scum who have a good reputation as town players. You have to intentionally make a mistake or you'd have no one to lynch.

I don't expect you to crack under pressure. Unlike Chandani and GoP I hope to actually get you lynched. Although I am well aware that I may end up lynched I can still win if you get lynch D2.

by **Gopher of Pern** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 3:57 am UTC

Unvote

Vote: Webby

I actually believe Boomfrog. I've been thinking for awhile now that Boomfrog wasn't scum, but it was hard to be convinced otherwise with their less than stellar track record of posts. Webby does seem the most cautious of players atm, and that is what scum would most likely do in this situation: Express feelings for the popular lynch, without committing themselves. Conman has tried hard this game, and I doubt very much that they are scum. Chandani I'm less sure about, but between Webby and Chandani, Webby is giving off the scummiest vibes atm.

by **webby** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 4:29 am UTC

Unfortunately that also happens to be what I do as a townie who's unsure - express my feelings for lynching the player that seems scummiest, without committing myself because I'm not sure. This is especially the case as I feel like I have to get it right today, because as the second-scummiest player on most players lists, it seems that otherwise I'm going to get lynched tomorrow.

If I am getting lynched, I'd better update my thoughts of the players to give you a little bit more to go on tomorrow:

Boomfrog - still the most suspcious player - his last few posts are exactly what he had to do as scum - he was about to get lynched so he attacked the player who most people said was the second-most suspcious, hoping to get people to change their vote. But I guess he'd do the same as town, because it's still worth doing whatever he can to stop us from lynching a confirmed townie (himself). He's still the scummiest based on his posts at the start.

GoP - I doubt he'd change his vote as scum, because he had no need to - he could have just got Boomfrog lynched today and I reckon ConMan would have gone along with lynching me tomorrow. So I reckon he's probably town.

Chandani - Not enough information yet, it's probably good that she's going to have the deciding vote, so look at who she votes for and why.

ConMan - Playing well whether he's town or scum. He's acted a bit like I have I think, so I'm not going to call him scummy for that!

So I guess I have to:

Vote: Boomfrog

which will force Chandani into making the decision, which I reckon is a very good thing. I think it's about 75-80% that either her or Boomfrog is scum (and I reckon most of the rest of you would say the same about me, Boomfrog, Chandani), so making her choose between me and Boomfrog is good for us.

by **AngrySquirrel** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 4:59 pm UTC

Votals:
2 Webby (BoomFrog, Gopher of Pern)
2 BoomFrog (ConMan, Webby)

5 players, 3 to lynch.

by **ConMan** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:40 pm UTC

BoomFrog wrote:Conman I had as town until the actual vote for me came when I had promised content after I was less busy in RL. Why the rush?

Because we needed to do something dramatic

At the start of the game, you (allegedly) did something dramatic to stir up discussion, but most of that discussion was centred around your actions. If I had gone away for the weekend without anything like that, it's quite likely that I would come back to practically no developments. Instead, we have you defending yourself, webby defending you, you convincing GoP that webby is actually scummier than you. It looks like my vote for you has spurred you into making some actually quite convincing arguments.

I do think you have a point, and I agree that webby has been playing pretty well one way or the other. That said, I will also agree with webby's plan - let's leave the deciding vote to Chandani.

by **BoomFrog** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 3:06 am UTC

ConMan wrote:It looks like my vote for you has spurred you into making some actually quite convincing arguments.

I was going to make my post anyway, I was just too busy the last few days, as I had said clearly before.

ConMan wrote:That said, I will also agree with webby's plan - let's leave the deciding vote to Chandani.

If Chandani is the scum then she will be deciding between two townies to lynch. I do agree that it would be nice for her to post more, but I think she is more likely town then you (and GoP may agree). If you think I am not scum then you shouldn't be voting for me right now. If you still think I am scum say so clearly.

by **Chandani** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 3:34 am UTC

(WARNING: STREAM OF CONSCIOUS-LIKE POST BELOW. IT MIGHT NOT MAKE THAT MUCH SENSE)
So... I read the arguments after ConMan's vote (which I didn't get at all, that wasn't what I meant by doing something drastic but whatever). Multiple times.
None of them made sense to me. Or, at least, none of them really convinced me to change my mind.
Which makes me suspicious of GoP for switching to webby. The sudden revelation that "Oh, I wasn't sure about BF" which was kind of out of the blue plus this vote is... weird. Really weird.
webby then says that GoP wouldn't switch if town, since webby would obviously vote for BF I guess...? I'm not following webby on that argument. Which is confusing me. So yeah. You know what else is weird? ConMan voting for BoomFrog after I post I would lynch BoomFrog. I would consider it vote-baiting or something, but it's really stupid considering A) I wouldn't hammer unless there was consensus in the decision (like now) and B) the known time difference between me and y'all.

If I vote for GoP you guys would hate me.

So with all this stuff happening I can't happily vote for BoomFrog or webby. Why won't I vote for BoomFrog? Because now I'm paranoid that webby's being a sneaky scum bastard who's active lurking to hide his scumminess. You know what? That seems like a good reason to vote for webby. But BoomFrog did do that weird vote-thing at the beginning.... and did explain at the end, and has contributed stuff, and webby hasn't as much? I dunno, I generally trust webby since he's townie a lot, but that doesn't help.

I kind of want to see what ConMan says to BoomFrog's latest post so I guess I'll vote later.

by **webby** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 3:49 am UTC

Chandani wrote:(WARNING: STREAM OF CONSCIOUS-LIKE POST BELOW. IT MIGHT NOT MAKE THAT MUCH SENSE)
So... I read the arguments after ConMan's vote (which I didn't get at all, that wasn't what I meant by doing something drastic but whatever). Multiple times.
None of them made sense to me. Or, at least, none of them really convinced me to change my mind.
Which makes me suspicious of GoP for switching to webby. The sudden revelation that "Oh, I wasn't sure about BF" which was kind of out of the blue plus this vote is... weird. Really weird.

Weird, yes, but not scummy. If GoP was scum, all he had to do to win was to keep his vote on Boomfrog, Boomfrog would have been lynched and then I likely would have been lynched tomorrow. My point was that there would be no need for scum GoP to do anything like that, so I think he's likely town.

So with all this stuff happening I can't happily vote for BoomFrog or webby. Why won't I vote for BoomFrog? Because now I'm paranoid that webby's being a sneaky scum bastard who's active lurking to hide his scumminess. You know what? That seems like a good reason to vote for webby. But BoomFrog did do that weird vote-thing at the beginning.... and did explain at the end, and has contributed stuff, and webby hasn't as much? I dunno, I generally trust webby since he's townie a lot, but that doesn't help.

I don't quite understand how I've been 'active lurking' - consider other games you've played with me and think about how I play as town. Generally as town I don't try to sound more sure of myself than I am. You'll also note that I'm not the one who usually makes the 'lets see how they react' moves - I tend to leave that up to others and then analyse later. That's my play style - it's unfortunate that that's sometimes taken as trying to fly under the radar/active lurking

by **webby** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 3:51 am UTC

Oh and ConMan, assuming you're town, make Chandani choose. That way, if she's scum, she needs to find a reason to lynch a townie.

by **Gopher of Pern** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:20 am UTC

Well, I think that actually puts Chandani in the town books for me. As scum, she was gifted the perfect opportunity to lynch, but couldn't make up her mind. I'm pretty sure most scum, and alot of townies would have voted then. I can understand your indecision, it took awhile to convince myself to vote for Webby.

I'm about 50% confident that Webby is scum. They have pretty much played as I would expect Webby-scum would do, which is very similar to Webby-town, but I think where Webby has hesitated is where their scum tells are.

The other 50% is split between Boomfrog and Conman. Boomfrog, because I can see them attempting the Lataro gambit, but if they have, they've pulled it off better than I would expect. Conman....well, having never played with Conman before, I have no idea how well they would play. Just can't rule them out.

by **ConMan** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:23 am UTC

NINJA MADNESS! I started writing this post when it would have been a direct response to BF's. Now I need to read about 5 more posts to work out what the state of play is now.

BoomFrog wrote:
ConMan wrote:It looks like my vote for you has spurred you into making some actually quite convincing arguments.
I was going to make my post anyway, I was just too busy the last few days, as I had said clearly before.

ConMan wrote:That said, I will also agree with webby's plan - let's leave the deciding vote to Chandani.
If Chandani is the scum then she will be deciding between two townies to lynch. I do agree that it would be nice for her to post more, but I think she is more likely town then you (and GoP may agree). If you think I am not scum then you shouldn't be voting for me right now. If you still think I am scum say so clearly.

Ok, I still think there's a good chance you're scum. I also think there's a good chance webby is scum. And I don't think there's enough between the two of you for me to switch to a straight lynch on him.

If I lynch webby now, Chandani doesn't get the opportunity to weigh in on the latest developments, and while she does appear to be a bit tired of D1 I think the situation is now at enough of a trigger point that her input is important. If, in fact, one of you two is scum, then I probably trust her a bit more than me to make the right call. And if whoever is lynched turns up town, then there's more information to work with.

Obviously I could also unvote you, but (a) like I said before, I'm still not convinced that your strategy isn't just some misdirection, and (b) this way, the pressure is on two people rather than one, which my confused little brain tells me gives us twice the chance of finding out something useful.

by **BoomFrog** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:32 am UTC

Chandani wrote:I dunno, I generally trust webby since he's townie a lot, but that doesn't help.

I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly. You mean in most games he is randomly picked to be town? Because you know, it's random right, so him being town often in other games doesn't make him more likely to be town now.

webby wrote:Oh and ConMan, assuming you're town, make Chandani choose. That way, if she's scum, she needs to find a reason to lynch a townie.

Why do you think Chandani is more likely to be scum then Conman? Isn't making conman make a choice (or at least voice an opinion) good also? You said in your analysis that Conman is very possibly scum but now you don't care about getting more content from him? Your encoraging him to not voice an opinion?

webby wrote:Chandani - Not enough information yet, it's probably good that she's going to have the deciding vote, so look at who she votes for and why.

ConMan - Playing well whether he's town or scum. He's acted a bit like I have I think, so I'm not going to call him scummy for that!

This seems like you consider them equally likely to be scum.

Gah, Ninja'd: I like Conman's answer. Very understandable position especially for a noob. Unfortunatly Chandani is a generally very passive player and often just follows the crowd anyway. So one of you will have to make a decision. Either way this is good stuff. However, if you had to make the hammer decision on webby or me which would you pick. None of this "it's really close so I'm going to leave my vote so Chandani has to decide."

by **ConMan** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:42 am UTC

Having read the posts in-between as well as BF's latest since my last post:

On the plus side, it looks like I was right in at least one thing - everyone has made a contribution today, and that's definitely affected how we all perceive each other's scumminess (hopefully in the right direction).

webby's push for me to keep giving Chandani the final decision somewhat confirms my feelings that it's not a bad thing to do - it essentially gives us information about Chandani as well as BF and webby.

So, my vote stays, Chandani has the casting vote. If she votes for GoP (or even me), then so be it and I'll have to rethink things (along with everyone else). If she lynches someone, then I look forward to the sun rising on D2 to shine light on us (if it hasn't done so by the end of D1).

In answer to BF, I seriously don't know. It's getting to the point where I'd possibly toss a coin. You're definitely dropping down on my scumdar, while webby is going up, but I think it's a case of both levelling off to the same suspected scumminess. I know that's not particularly helpful, but it really is the best I can say right now and I don't think that's going to change until someone actually dies.

by **Chandani** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 12:55 am UTC

BoomFrog wrote:
Chandani wrote:I dunno, I generally trust webby since he's townie a lot, but that doesn't help.

I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly. You mean in most games he is randomly picked to be town? Because you know, it's random right, so him being town often in other games doesn't make him more likely to be town now.

What I meant is that he seems really townie most of the time, and ends up to be town (which doesn't mean anything anything, since as you stated, it's random) so thus, it doesn't help.

webby's point on how scum wouldn't do that: frankly, you get to the point where scum could be pretending to be town and be all indecisive and stuff, and that's when I paranoid and confused. I still don't know how GoP would be sure that BoomFrog would be lynched if he kept the votes... I guess he could have hoped that town would eventually agree to hammer on BoomFrog, or that you would do that (which seems weird, since hammering in this game would be like a scumtell, but then I like getting permission for lots of stuff) considering that you expressed dislike for BoomFrog before GoP's vote. Which seems like a reasonable hope if GoP is scum. But seems like a stretch.

ConMan's post is fine. So now I'm going to vote.
Vote: BoomFrog
It kind of came down to a coinflip in the end. Yup.

by **AngrySquirrel** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 10:16 am UTC

Boomfrog has been lynched.

It is now Night 1.

by **AngrySquirrel** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 10:40 am UTC

Dawn breaks to a wonderful sunny morning, birds are chirping and the temperature is just perfect for frolicing about. The townies groggily stare out at this wonderful day, slowly being filled with a horrible sense of dread. Nothing this good comes without a prize, especially in the XKCD Village. However, after wiping the last remains of sleep out of their eyes, and devouring ridiculous amounts of coffee, the townies decide to head over to Gopher Of Pern for some cake. Arriving, they however discover a gruesome sight. There is no cake! Also Gopher of Pern is dead.

"Well, dammit. I guess that means BoomFrog wasn't the bad guy after all." One grumpily grumbles.
"Also, someone ate all the cake!" Another responds.
"Let's lynch them." chimes the third. And thus a new day begins.

Boomfrog was lynched. Vanilla town.
Gopher Of Pern has been killed. Vanilla town.

Day 2. 3 players. 2 to lynch.

by **ConMan** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 12:12 pm UTC

Rats. I kind of suspected BF would turn up town after all that. And GoP NKed? I'm not sure whether or not I should have expected that, but I can see some reasons for it.

So, at this point, webby is obviously looking pretty high on my suspect list for a few reasons. Firstly, there are only two people on it so it's not hard to be high up on it. Secondly, all the leftover stuff from D1 where everyone decided that webby and BF were the scummiest. Thirdly, if Chandani were scum, the naïve strategy would be to leave the people most likely to suspect each other as her remaining town, thereby making it easy to push one into voting for the other and then bringing on the hammer. Webby seemed to be pretty convinced of my town-ness on D1 (although I'll be interested in hearing his take on things now), which means that the strategy relies entirely on me deciding to vote for webby and Chandani hammering for the win.

Then again, as we discussed on D1, scum would want to take out the biggest threats, and I certainly don't fall into that category. Not to mention, I was definitely also sitting in the "webby is now acting scummy" camp by the end of D1, and it wouldn't be hard to see that I'd be likely to put a vote on him today and hence let Chandani win.

Clearly I'm having a bit too much wine. I will let the others put their 2 cents in to see what we can learn.

Alternatively, I could just try voting for one or the other, and see who hammers for the mafia win - perfect strategy, right?

by **webby** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 11:41 pm UTC

That's odd, I didn't expect there to be a nightkill. The obvious strategy for scum would have been to withhold it, meaning if town lynched there would only be a 1/4 chance of getting it right rather than 1/3 (and if town mislynched at 3-1, they'd lose). There's nothing in the rules that would seem to stop scum from doing that, unless you count 'The mafia will send in their kill when we reach the night-period.'

Quick defence - if you're going with that line of thinking ConMan, I would have killed you if I was scum because I think it would have been relatively easy to convince Chandani to vote for GoP. I certainly wouldn't have left you and Chandani alive, because it's clear that you thought I was the second-scummiest after Boomfrog and Chandani has in no way shown any inclination to find you scummy. I accept I now have a difficult task to help town win (I have to not only avoid getting lynched, but also pick the right one of you two as scum), but I'll try.

But anyway, Chandani or ConMan?

Chandani - never played with her with her being scum before, but she doesn't seem that different to how she is as town, which suggests she's either town or she's good at being scum. One thing that sticks out is how much she was emphasising in her last post how difficult a choice it was between me and Boomfrog etc., which does feel a bit like it's saying 'don't blame me if I'm wrong', because she knows she is going to be wrong. Also the fact that she chose to vote for Boomfrog when the momentum was moving away from finding Boomfrog scummy and towards finding me scummy suggests that maybe she was voting for the person who she thought would be harder to lynch on the next day. I fully expected her to vote for me.

ConMan - this is obviously a difficult one having never played with him before - he has been a bit cautious, but I have no idea if the cautious is newness, a playstyle thing or a scummy thing. Certainly a new player being scum would be unlikely to do anything particularly bold, but then again often new players as town tend to follow the crowd. Seemed very happy to leave the decision up to Chandani over who to lynch, which is a minor point against being town, because it's something that you'd probably do as town, but definitely do as scum (if that makes sense).

That's what I have so far, if I had to choose right now I'd pick Chandani over ConMan.

by **ConMan** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 2:25 am UTC

webby wrote:That's odd, I didn't expect there to be a nightkill. The obvious strategy for scum would have been to withhold it, meaning if town lynched there would only be a 1/4 chance of getting it right rather than 1/3 (and if town mislynched at 3-1, they'd lose). There's nothing in the rules that would seem to stop scum from doing that, unless you count 'The mafia will send in their kill when we reach the night-period.'

Hmm. Probably not a bad idea to clarify.

AS, was the mafia obliged to send in a kill?

by **AngrySquirrel** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 10:23 am UTC

ConMan wrote:AS, was the mafia obliged to send in a kill?

No. Unless stated otherwise, a power-role always has the choice to not use their power.

by **AngrySquirrel** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 8:00 am UTC

If you don't post anything soon I might have to put up a deadline!

by **ConMan** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 10:35 pm UTC

I hate to go all meta into what should be a nice simple game, but ...

Chandani hasn't posted since the lynch, but she has posted in a couple of other games in the last day or two. Has she forgotten, lost interest, or just doesn't want to contribute until there's a vote she can hammer on?

I've been holding off because I wanted to see what she had to say, and I would have thought that now would be the right time to put something forward.

FoS: Chandani

Incidentally, webby, it isn't a 1/3 chance that we get the scum today, it's only 1/4, assuming both the remaining townies randomly pick one of the other two players to vote for. Clearly if either townie votes for the other one, scum will hammer and that's it; it's only if they both pick right (with 1/2 chance each) that they get the scum.

by **webby** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 11:21 pm UTC

Chandani seems busy - as far as I can tell she just had enough time to make quick posts in the two games that were coming up to deadline. I'm surprised that you didn't notice that - she clearly said there that she was busy and would be back online tomorrow night (which I assume is sometime soon our time) - slight FOS for trying to make something out of this.

It's 1/3 - if town votes first it's 1/4, if scum votes first it's 1/2:

Scum votes first:
Townie voted for must vote for the person who voted for them, else it's an instant loss.
Other townie has a 50-50 choice.

Town votes first:
50% chance that they're wrong and the game is over.
50% chance they're right. Scum must vote for the person who voted for them, else they're revealed as scum.
Then the other townie has a 50-50 choice.

Assuming who votes first is random and who they vote for is random apart from the constraints above, chances of a town win:
1/3*1/2 + 2/3*1/4 = 1/3

by **ConMan** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 11:40 pm UTC

webby wrote:Chandani seems busy - as far as I can tell she just had enough time to make quick posts in the two games that were coming up to deadline. I'm surprised that you didn't notice that - she clearly said there that she was busy and would be back online tomorrow night (which I assume is sometime soon our time) - slight FOS for trying to make something out of this.

I admit I didn't see that much - I just looked quickly enough to see whether she'd been around, and I didn't remember her saying anything specific about her availability in this game (but plenty about how busy she is, which I can fully sympathise with). I can understand if she was just trying to contribute to the games that actually had looming deadlines. Apologies to Chandani given that that's the case, and I certainly won't be pushing to take her out on such weak pretenses.
UnFoS: Chandani
For now. But I honestly have little more to go on at the moment.

webby wrote:It's 1/3 - if town votes first it's 1/4, if scum votes first it's 1/2:

Scum votes first:
Townie voted for must vote for the person who voted for them, else it's an instant loss.
Other townie has a 50-50 choice.

Town votes first:
50% chance that they're wrong and the game is over.
50% chance they're right. Scum must vote for the person who voted for them, else they're revealed as scum.
Then the other townie has a 50-50 choice.

Assuming who votes first is random and who they vote for is random apart from the constraints above, chances of a town win:
1/3*1/2 + 2/3*1/4 = 1/3

Hmm. I see your point. And hence it's in scum's interest to put the first vote in, as long as they do so without making it obvious that they're increasing their odds of winning. As always, really.

Unfortunately, there's not much point in discussing things much further until Chandani can contribute as well - I want to compare how scummy both of your defences are, not just judge them on their own merit. And then, presumably, go and flip my coin once I realise I still have no idea what's going on.

by **Chandani** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:28 am UTC

Hey.
At this point in the game I'm pretty paranoid. Basically, I can't be sure if webby or ConMan are townie because of scum acting like town etc. The kill doesn't help either, since there are decent reasons for either webby as scum or ConMan as scum to kill GoP.

@ConMan: you misinterpreted webby's stats. According to what he said, it's better for town for scum to vote first since scum isn't going to vote for themselves and thus it gives town a 50/50 chance. Though in reality, it probably won't seem any different for town, since they don't know who is scum. It's interesting webby brought that up, thus decreasing the chance that scum will vote first, but that's meh.

webby's comment seems to increase the likelihood that ConMan is scum, since he's a newb and wouldn't think of withholding his kill. However, webby could be scum pretending to be a newb, so that doesn't mean much, or webby thought of it later and is scum and is bringing it up to increase town cred.

As you can see, my paranoia is messing with my instincts and is making me unpredicatable. Right now ConMan is slightly above webby, but that's not by much and it can change really quickly.

by **ConMan** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 5:16 am UTC

Chandani wrote:As you can see, my paranoia is messing with my instincts and is making me unpredicatable. Right now ConMan is slightly above webby, but that's not by much and it can change really quickly.

Paranoia is, obviously, a good mindset to have at this point in the game. I'd kind of like your paranoia to point over webby's way a bit more, but I'm quite happy for wait for that to change. I'm in pretty much the same situation - I'll happily jump on pretty much anything as a scumtell.

by **webby** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 12:20 pm UTC

Chandani, I thought it was a reasonably obvious point that scum wouldn't want to vote first - in fact it already seemed pretty accepted that sitting back and waiting for a vote was a sign of a scumtell (that was the justification for ConMan's FOS of you).

I think a partial solution to the first player to vote problem is to make it very clear what our thoughts are before we vote. That way, if the two townies are thinking of voting for each other, the scum still has to justify which one he's going to vote for.

Also (I'm going to call players A, B and C here) if A and B say they're going to vote for each other, then C should vote first. This is because at least one of A and B is a townie telling the truth. At this point, if C is scum, then it's clearly best to make them vote first (although they've pretty much certainly won anyway, you may as well give them one last chance to stuff up), while if A or B is town, they can vote first and still have a 50-50 chance of winning (assuming the other townie doesn't change their mind at that stage). Does that make sense?

More content later, I don't really feel like doing more analysis after the post I just made in the other game.

by **webby** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 5:04 am UTC

Ok, nothing seems to be happening here. I don't exactly blame anyone for this given that the last player to do something interesting got lynched.

Anyway, I think in the absence of anything that changes my mind, I'm going to vote for ConMan. I know that goes against what I said a few days ago, but I've realised that ConMan has got away with having no pressure at all put on him in the game and that the best reasoning for him being town has been that he's new and that newbie scum would have made a mistake by now. I think that he seems a competent enough player that I don't think he necessarily would give any strong scumtells, especially when nobody has looked like voting for him. The other thing which sways me was the recent attempt to put suspicion on Chandani with a weak reason.

I'm not going to rule out the possibility of voting for Chandani, because she's just showed in the Mulan game that she can play scum without giving any strong scumtells, but that's the way I'm heading at the moment.

Very interested to hear your responses to this - ConMan, persuade me otherwise, Chandani, do you agree or disagree and why?

by **ConMan** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 1:13 am UTC

Honestly, my FoS on Chandani was a combination of misunderstanding (already explained), a desire to latch onto anything that could possibly be a scumtell (as you yourself mentioned), and possibly a slight desire to have things move quickly (which is probably a sign that I should play in a turbo, except that I think then it would be a bit too fast for me).

That said, Chandani has been pretty happy to sit in the background, timezone differences notwithstanding. Unfortunately, at the moment it looks like all our posts are going along the lines of "I have no strong feelings towards anyone being scummy", which is horribly unhelpful. Actually, it's even worse, since Chandani's and my posts are probably more like "clearly X has the wine with the poison, unless that's what Y wants us to think". At least webby's analysis doesn't try to pass the wine back and forth, so it looks more straight forward (unless that's what he *wants* us to think

).

You know what, I think that my FoS is still looking towards Chandani, for those reasons. And because at least from a very naive viewpoint, given that webby was the last person remaining under suspicion on D1 it makes a lot of sense to leave him there as an easy target; especially if you were to assume that I wouldn't think things through enough and assume that all the signs were pointing towards him.

I don't know if that's enough to convince you, webby, but it's as much as I can think of right now.

by **webby** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 1:31 am UTC

Ok, that's a reasonable response - I hadn't actually changed my mind from Chandani to you, I just realised that absolutely no pressure had been put on you all game and wanted to make the best case I could against you to see how you'd react. I think your FOS at Chandani was understandable - in this situation anyone, whether town or scum, will be trying to pick up on anything they can. Overall I think you've acted pretty townie all game, while in a larger game where I didn't know that one of you had to be scum, I would have put Chandani as neutral.

I'm probably going to go with my initial instinct and vote for Chandani, although I'm willing to give her a chance to convince me otherwise first. I think it's approaching vote time, because I agree we seem to be going around in circles here - looking for your reaction was really the last try I could think of at getting information out of this game.

by **ConMan** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 2:36 am UTC

So in other words, you were doing what BoomFrog did D1, but without the "acting completely out of character and hence appearing scummy". And, in fact, what GoP advocated, when he pointed out that BF was doing it but in an over-the-top fashion. That's just enough for me to take a few fractions of a point off you on my scumminess meter, although if it turns out that was merely a well-executed ploy then I will pre-emptively doff my hat to you.

by **AngrySquirrel** » Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:12 am UTC

Okay, I'm getting impatient.

You've got 48 hours to end the day!

by **webby** » Tue Nov 01, 2011 1:35 pm UTC

Ok, I was giving Chandani a chance to respond, but if she doesn't post I think I'll have to vote for her tomorrow.

by **Chandani** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 3:04 am UTC

Hmmm.

Webby's first instinct to 'vote' on ConMan was.... weird (before reading the other posts, aka my first reaction). It didn't make much sense to vote for someone to put pressure at this point, in my head; I would rather ask them lots of questions or say 'hey, I think you look scummy', which would elicit the same response as saying going to vote (for me, going to vote>hey I think you look scummy). Plus webby's reasoning was weak.

ConMan did a good job of deflecting and putting the focus on another player. Which was me, sadly, but he did a good job. I don't think that ConMan's reasoning makes the most sense, if we're looking at why people are alive; rather, we should look at why GoP died, or who would profit from it more. Sadly, looking at this would be decently winey but I can't think of anything else to do. And it is affected by our perceptions as well, which is useful to know, since scum knows exactly why GoP died over us, so they would want to hide it. (But I'm not jumping on this topic either am I scum oh god) My lack of resposne has been from lack of interest. Sorry guys.

Webby's claim about his actions makes sense, so I'm willing to believe this. Of course, it doesn't mean it's a scum pretending to be town ploy, but then paranoia kicks in and everything falls apart.

On a slightly-unrelated note... would asking questions about PM formation to other players be considered game-breaking? I'm at my wits ends at determining scum, and this is possibly one way to root it out. Depending on how stuff was made.

by **AngrySquirrel** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:37 am UTC

Chandani wrote: would asking questions about PM formation to other players be considered game-breaking?

Rule #8 says:
"You may not post verbatim or quote from your role PM. Paraphrasing is fine. YOU MAY NOT QUOTE YOUR ROLE PM, anyone who does anything even close to this will be publicly executed."

Stay within the bounds of this rule and you'll live.

by **Gopher of Pern** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:50 am UTC

Yawn.....

Yes, the corpse just yawned!

by **webby** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:59 am UTC

Lol oh dear, I guess this day has been going for way too long.

Has to be finished tomorrow though.

Chandani gave us nothing in that post to go off - could you at least say whether you think me or ConMan is scum?

As for the role PM claim, as far as I remember, in every open game (and even one closed game) where I've been scum here, the mod has either shown me a vanilla town role PM or put the role PMs in the first post. Most mods (and I agree) don't think that role PM descriptions are the right way to decide the game and put mechanics into place to avoid it. In a game like this I think there would likely be only a couple of words difference between the scum and town PMs anyway.

So my guess is that it's a bluff by Chandani, that she was shown a vanilla town PM and is trying to use it to prove her towniness. The rest of her post doesn't help her cause - it's completely non-committal and the statement that she hasn't posted because of 'lack of interest' seems more true than she means to let on - she doesn't care which of me and ConMan gets lynched and was hoping one of us would go for the other before she felt the need to reply.

I'm more confident than I've been all game, I'll rate it at 70-75%. Very well played ConMan if I'm wrong:

Vote: Chandani

Up to you guys if you want to have role PM discussions before voting, but as I said above, I don't think it's the right way to decide the game, so I won't be letting it influence my vote.

by **Chandani** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 3:14 pm UTC

Hmmm.

Role PMS: It comes down to what I would do if I was scum. So, do you think it would be in my playing style to ask questions about role PMs if I knew scum had access to them? (If I answer it, too much wine). Also: yeah, I guess there would be a few word differences as well, but they would be important word differences. So it could have worked.

However, since learning that scum could have access to town role PM (which begs the question: did town have access to scum role PM (not necessarily in this game, but in the past)? It's not very open if it's one way...) I don't think I'm going to ask them.

It's interesting that webby considered the game open: it's not stated to be open, though basic descriptions of possible roles were given, but not how many roles would be there. Which would make it semi-open, most likely, and thus make it less likely for scum to have access to town role PMs. I wonder how webby got the idea that the game was open... for the whole time, I've been thinking it's closed.

webby wrote:The rest of her post doesn't help her cause - it's completely non-committal and the statement that she hasn't posted because of 'lack of interest' seems more true than she means to let on - she doesn't care which of me and ConMan gets lynched and was hoping one of us would go for the other before she felt the need to reply.

... Have we been reading the same thread? It seems like you guys both want to lynch ME. The last few posts indicate that. So me doing nothing would have ended up with me being lynched, which isn't good for town or scum (depending on what you think my alignment is)...

So does that add credence to the idea that I'm just bored?

The fact that webby acted like I was someone magically going to avoid the lynch if I didn't do anything is weird. Plus, I've been leaning towards hin a bit, but not enough to be considered actual belief over paranoia. This pushes me to a vote: plus, it was the discussed strategy if such a situation happens.

Vote: webby

by **Chandani** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 3:43 pm UTC

EBWOP:
On game setup... AS did tell us how many people were there. And the distribution of roles. Which makes it more open.
But no role PMs were left out, which I think is important to make it an open game.
So I don't know where this game goes in the open/closed categories.

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